Chrenkoff

"Chrenkin' off" on the Right side of life since 1972 - - -
The news and views from Down Under on politics, international affairs and culture

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Thanks Mark Steyn...

...for another mention in your "Jerusalem Post" column (registration required, but something similar could pop up for free in the "Chicago Sun-Times" soon, so keep an eye out (Update: read the whole thing without hassles at Free Republic - hat tip: Dan Foty)), as he takes on the mainstream media's forulatic reporting from Iraq (hat tip: Ninme):

"And in between their Bridges-Of-Madison-County imagery and Horse-Whisperer narrative devices the Western media somehow managed to lose the story – functioning municipal government in the south, booming tourism in the north, normality and progress in three-quarters of the country, and now the first Arab country with a non-Arab head of state. The insurgent-of-the-day approach to Iraq didn't even capture that element correctly: On the second anniversary of the invasion, Agence France-Presse ran a story remarkably like the AP's hypothetical specimen. The headline: '45 Killed In Insurgent Attacks.'

"The lead paragraph: 'At least 45 people have been killed in insurgent attacks across Iraq as Washington defended its decision to go to war on the second anniversary of the US-led invasion.'

"It took an Australian blogger, Arthur Chrenkoff, to poke deep down into the story and emerge with the most salient fact of this bloody toll – that of the 45 dead, 29 were 'insurgents' themselves. Terrorism is supposed to be one guy indiscriminately killing large numbers of the other side. No terrorist network can survive long if it's losing two of its own men for every one of the enemy. That's the story: a day of hope turned into yet another day of tears – for the insurgents.

"With a few honorable exceptions, Iraq coverage has been a truly spectacular failure. One day in the future, we'll dig out the yellowing cuttings and wonder how America managed to lose every daily battle and yet still win the war."

Worth reading for that last sentence alone, isn't it?

Update: This is almost as cool as guest appearance in a Mark Steyn column: